


Where the Path May Lead (there is no path)

by Damkianna



Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, F/F, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:45:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damkianna/pseuds/Damkianna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know it's forbidden," Erika shouts at Selene's back, and then wonders why she bothered. AU: Erika's too curious about why Selene is leaving the coven archives in such a hurry to just let it go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Path May Lead (there is no path)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [havocthecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/gifts).



> I read your letter and your prompt was irresistable, though as you might have guessed by the length of this thing, it took on a life of its own! I loved writing it, and I hope you enjoy reading it. ♥
> 
> Title's from a Ralph W. Emerson quote, because I hate titling things and have exactly as much originality to give as a [motivational poster](http://ih2.redbubble.net/image.11311890.5559/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg). \o/

"You know it's forbidden," Erika shouts at Selene's back, and then wonders why she bothered; Selene has never cared about the rules, not really, not even when they make things easy.

True to form, Selene strides around the corner like she didn't hear a thing, and Erika sighs. Even if she catches up to Selene, will she get an explanation? Erika considers the odds, and then turns to look over her shoulder down the hallway. Selene must have been looking for something in the archive rooms, she never goes in there otherwise—for her an hour at the target range is more relaxing than any book. And what the hell would she find in there that would have her moving so quickly?

She almost decides not to ask; but in the end, curiosity wins out. "Selene," Erika calls out—not because it will make Selene slow, but just so Selene will know Erika's following her. Surprising Selene is a mistake Erika's only actually managed to make once, but she's never going to repeat it.

But when Erika turns the corner, Selene has come to a stop in the corridor. "Make it quick," Selene says, tight.

"What is it?" Erika says in reply. "What did you find?"

Selene looks at her silently for a long moment, measuring, and Erika tenses; she decided long ago that she was done being found wanting by Selene. Selene has never liked Erika. She thinks Erika is as useless as the girl she was on the day she was bitten, and Erika tried and tried to change her mind, and then finally grew wise enough to stop trying.

Not wise enough to stop _wanting_ to try, but Erika's learned to control that part.

But Selene lets out a sharp breath through her nose, and then crosses her arms. "I think Lucian is still alive," she says, as quick to the point as always.

Erika stares at her. It's the last thing Erika expected her to say—or the last thing that's still within the realm of possibility, the last thing that isn't something like _I want a purple teddy bear for my birthday_.

But Selene isn't Erika: Selene is a terrible liar. Not because she can't keep a straight face, or because she can't keep her voice even, but because she just doesn't do it. There's still a chance that it's not true; but if Selene says it then Selene _thinks_ it is, and Selene doesn't change her mind about anything without a good reason, Erika knows that much.

"How do you know?" Erika says.

Selene stares at her, narrow-eyed. "What does it matter to you?" she says.

Erika shrugs, elaborately casual. "If you're right," she says, "then Kraven is a liar and a traitor, and he won't fare well if Amelia comes down on your side. He's not so good a fuck that I'll be hanging onto him through that."

Selene's mouth flattens into a line.

Erika ignores it. "He must have made a deal," she says slowly, savoring the words. She loves this, this slow calculation, unraveling people from the edges until she's figured out what makes them tick. "Perhaps he did spare Lucian's life, but Kraven never acts unless there's something he can gain by it."

Selene raises her eyebrows, as though she's surprised to hear Erika hasn't been writing love poems to Kraven in her spare time. Erika tries not to roll her eyes. "He wants power," Selene says, and then Erika really does roll her eyes. Subtlety really isn't Selene's style.

She might be blunt, but she's not wrong. "They must have made some kind of deal," Erika says. "But what could a lycan have that Kraven would want?"

"The simplest way to advance," Selene says, "is to kill those who are ahead of you."

Erika purses her lips. It's always about killing, with Selene. Never anything fun. Still, Erika supposes, she has a point. "No one would ever think to blame a killing done by lycans on Kraven," Erika says, because it's true, and then it strikes her all at once, so clean and clear that she smiles in pleasure at having worked it out. "Amelia. We were all there when Viktor woke her, there was no weakness to exploit; but she went to America this time, she has to travel back. She must have Deathdealers with her, but it's nothing like being in the middle of your coven—"

"Kraven was responsible for the arrangements," Selene says.

Erika nods. "To be an elder—that's the only height left that he has yet to reach."

Selene's stare turns sharp. "And Lucian would not be sorry to have the blood of an elder on his hands."

Erika looks at her. It still sounds ludicrous— _Lucian_ , alive—and yet if that one hypothetical is presumed to be true, the rest hangs together quite convincingly.

"Not a bad plan," she says, and scoffs when Selene glares at her. " _I_ wouldn't do it, but for something so ambitious, it's fairly low-risk. There aren't many left who would know Lucian's face on sight. Even you didn't know him when you saw him." She looks at Selene for a moment, and then adds, "Not all of us like to kill things with our own two hands."

Selene doesn't reply, only turns to continue down the hallway; but Erika could swear the corner of her mouth twitches.

  


* * *

  


"Wait—wait," Erika says, and Selene manages to hold in an impatient sigh. "What are you going to do?"

Selene weighs it for a moment—telling Erika, not telling Erika. On the one hand: apparently Erika's attachment to Kraven is not greater than her loyalty to the coven or to Amelia. Selene feels strangely relieved at that; she supposes it's good to know that Erika's taste is not quite as bad as she'd thought. Erika is young, and could yet be an asset to the coven; Kraven has lived up to his name. Better that he not drag Erika down with him.

On the other hand: Viktor's advice is the only advice Selene has ever needed. Why should that change now?

"You can't accuse him of anything," Erika says, apparently tired of waiting for Selene to answer. "He hasn't done it yet, you can't just— _Selene_."

She's grabbed Selene's shoulder; Selene whirls angrily. So many small stupid things have kept Selene away from Viktor, kept her from the nearest thing to a father she's had since the lycans struck her family, and Erika is only the most recent.

But Erika lifts her hand the moment Selene starts to turn, and holds it up defensively. "Selene," she says again. "Kraven's not—a lycan in the street. You can't shoot every problem in the head."

Selene's patience, never abundant, is worn thin. "I wasn't going to shoot him," she snaps out, "and I wasn't going to call him out. I was going to wake Viktor."

Erika's look of shock is almost satisfying. "You _can't_ ," she says; of course she does, Erika, who has always been so content to play by the rules that Selene finds so stifling. This is not the first time Selene has thought to herself that Erika, so much younger, is still better suited to vampire politics than Selene will ever be. "You can't, Selene, you don't know how. You don't even have to."

"What?"

"If we get to Amelia," Erika says. "If we get there before the lycans do. Amelia's already coming to wake Marcus; if she doesn't go to sleep herself, that's two elders against Kraven alone. And you know he'll be alone, once they know. Whatever you saw, whatever you've learned—they can bite you and they'll see it, too."

"She won't get here fast enough," Selene says.

Erika raises an eyebrow, and fishes something from her pocket. "Then tell her so," she says, and holds out a cell phone.

  


* * *

  


"Tell her to change her plans. Tell her to send someone with the train—in a different car, or riding on top. If you're wrong, nothing will happen. And if you're right—"

"She'll live to tell about it," Selene says, and takes the phone.

Erika leaves Selene in the hallway with the cell, Amelia's information highlighted on the screen—Erika wasn't exactly given the number, but Kraven's not as careful as he once was. He's traded in a Deathdealer's caution around everyone for a politician's caution around the powerful, and he's never thought of Erika as powerful. He left Amelia's personal number lying out on the table, and why shouldn't she have memorized it? It gave her something to do while he was chewing on her neck.

She heads toward the main hall where Kraven likes best to hold court. Kraven doesn't think as much of her as she's wanted him to, but he may notice if she's gone for too long—he wants so badly to be the center of all attention that he has forged a keen sense for the times when there are too few eyes on him.

Sure enough, he looks up when Erika strides in, and she ducks her head apologetically; but she hasn't been gone long enough to earn motion, only a sour glance. Apparently he's not irritated enough to slap her the way he did Selene. Which is for the best, Erika thinks. Selene didn't rip his arm off for the memory of Viktor, for the sake of coven hierarchy and coven stability; but Erika knows now what Selene hadn't put together then, and Kraven's days are numbered. She's got no reason to let him hurt her.

But Selene probably hasn't finished talking to Amelia; it's best if Erika acts like nothing has changed.

She takes the seat she's been inching toward lately, on the arm of his chair, and when he doesn't shove her off she puts the same look on her face that she would have worn before: faintly pleased, faintly proud, daring one of the others to challenge her.

"Where have you been?" he says. He's doing it because there are others around: Cecilia at his feet, Pieter lounging on the sofa, Katarina with her fingers in Pieter's hair. He must have looked for her earlier and been unable to find her; if he doesn't demand an explanation now that she's arrived, it will look strange, as though it's acceptable that she was not there when he wanted her.

And above all, she can't tell him the truth—not about where she was, not about where Selene was, and not about Selene's new pet. At least not yet.

"I'm sorry," she says, and ducks her head. A day ago it would have been true; she would have been irritated with herself for displeasing him when she's spent so much time and energy trying to accomplish the reverse. "You saw how Selene's human ran—I wanted to make sure he hadn't taken anything." She dares to touch Kraven's fingers lightly, and Kraven lets her, grudgingly. "I wanted to make sure he hadn't stolen something of ours."

It's exactly the sort of thing she would have said before—ours, the coven's, except she's touching the back of Kraven's hand and smiling at him carefully, and surely he knows what she's really implying by it.

His mouth twists, sour, but he doesn't shake her hand off. She can tell what mood Kraven is in by the way he reacts to her, how clumsy he'll let her advances get before he shoves her away. Another day, he wouldn't have let her even sit on the arm of his chair—a day when he was feeling confident, when he wanted the others to look at him with respect and didn't mind making her unhappy. But today, Erika thinks, he's nervous; today, he wants someone to fawn over him. He's not quite desperate enough to be encouraging, not yet, but he'll take whatever she gives him.

"And did he?" Kraven says.

Erika smiles at him. "Not a thing," she says. "It's all where it should be. It's like he wasn't there at all."

Kraven shifts in his chair. Even with this reassurance, Selene's human still makes him uncomfortable. And he doesn't even know the human's practically a lycan already.

He calls for a little blood, dark red in tall thin glasses, and for Katarina's newest pet to dance. The human is a girl, dark-skinned and very pretty; she's Katarina's favorite, for the moment, and Kraven likes to make her dance. She's very good at it.

Some of them watch; some of them talk in low voices, sipping now and then from their glasses. Erika keeps one eye on the room and one on Kraven, stroking his arm whenever his expression gets particularly dark, making eyes at him and dispensing compliments on autopilot. She's so, so good at this; it's a shame, really, how little Kraven appreciates it.

The motion at the door catches her eye immediately, when it comes. It's Djamila—new, even newer than Erika, and not looking forward to trying to cross the room without blocking anybody's view of Katarina's girl.

This is an opportunity Erika would have taken even before her conversation with Selene. "I'll get it," she murmurs in Kraven's ear with a little smirk, and then she scurries up the back wall and leaps.

She's a vampire: she lands on the far wall as lightly as a cat, and drops to the floor no more loudly than a pin. Djamila looks at her gratefully when she reaches the door—a little too gratefully, Erika thinks, and when Djamila speaks Erika learns why.

"It's the human," Djamila whispers, quiet even to a vampire's ears. "The Deathdealer—her pet came back."

Erika raises her eyebrows. "How do you know?" she says, matching Djamila's volume.

"He's at the gate," says Djamila. "On the cameras."

Erika nudges her back out the door and closes it once they're both in the hall. "I'd better see for myself," she says, and then gambles carefully: she looks at Djamila and smiles, a little rueful. "You know how he is."

It pays off. Djamila ducks her head and grins. "I do," she admits softly.

Erika looks at her for a moment and then, on a whim, kisses her cheek. Djamila was a good pick, and it never hurts to foster a little good will. Perhaps she'll be useful. "Thank you for telling me," she says, with one last small touch to Djamila's shoulder; and then she turns away down the hall. She'll have to go toward the security room as long as Djamila's watching, and maybe a little further—down the stairs, perhaps, and then she'll be able to go find Selene.

  


* * *

  


Selene waits through three rings, four, five, and then at last the ringing stops. No one speaks on the other end of the line for a long moment, but Deathdealers never break a silence first.

"I don't recognize this number," says a voice at last, the tone low and faintly amused—absolutely Amelia, Selene thinks, and she feels her shoulders relax. Amelia is not Viktor, but there's something about her that Selene has always liked. The council was not pleased to be uprooted to America, but Amelia, as a rule, cares very little about other people's displeasure.

"I don't believe you've been called by it before," Selene says equably.

Amelia is briefly silent. "Selene," she says, and draws in a breath. "What an unexpected pleasure."

"In my experience," Selene says, "pleasures often are."

Amelia laughs. "Not all of us are Deathdealers," she says. "But I assume you haven't called to exchange philosophies."

"No." Selene pauses, trying to decide how best to phrase it, and then gives up. "I called to warn you. I have no proof, but I thought it better to tell you now than to wait and risk your death."

"I cannot help agreeing with your assessment," Amelia says, light.

"I believe Kraven intends for you to be killed," Selene says. "I do not know what will be waiting for you—his men, or lycans, or both. But I have reason to believe he is working with Lucian—"

"Lucian," Amelia repeats, and now every trace of amusement or mockery is gone from her voice.

Selene describes the lycan she saw, his hair and his face, large eyes and curling mouth, the necklace. When she tells Amelia about it, about the quartered circle and the pale green stone, Amelia makes a sound.

"It was Lucian," she says, unhesitating. "That necklace is his. No lycan would ever have taken it from him, nor would the lycans who knew him have allowed any other to wear it."

"Then it was him," Selene says. "And if he is not dead—"

"If he is not dead," Amelia says, "then Kraven is a liar. No Deathdealer would ever have left a lycan with his head still attached to his shoulders; he could not have made a mistake. You think he means to kill me?"

Selene shrugs, unthinking, even though Amelia cannot see her. "I think the waking is a time of instability for the coven," she says. "I do not begrudge you America, but the travel has given Kraven an opportunity he would not otherwise have had."

"He was given responsibility for the arrangements," Amelia concedes. "Better cautious than dead, as you've said."

Selene closes her eyes in relief. "You'll change your plans, then?" she says.

"A bit late for that," Amelia says evenly. "We have already boarded the train. But I imagine we'll be able to come up with something. Forewarned is forearmed."

"Forearmed is forearmed," Selene says, and Amelia laughs.

"Oh, we'll be that, too," she says, and then there is a pause. "Thank you," Amelia adds. "I won't forget this."

The line goes dead; Selene pulls the cell away from her ear to see that Amelia has hung up. It's not a surprise— _thank you_ is the kindest thing Selene has ever heard from a council member, let alone an elder, who isn't Viktor. And _I won't forget this_. A platitude, for humans; but one elder's memory is every elder's memory, and the nearest thing to eternal that there is.

Selene closes the phone and holds it for a moment. It's cool in her hand, small and smooth; that it should save an elder's life more readily than a gun or a sword seems ludicrous. And yet.

But she can't stand in the corridor staring at it. She's not far from the archives—and not far from her rooms.

It's still raining when she reaches them; Selene holds the cell phone in her hand and stares out the window, watches the water stream down the glass, but no amount of distraction can change her nature. She hears the footsteps before they even reach the door, and the knock doesn't surprise her at all.

"Yes," she says, and turns.

It's Erika, with that wicked, smug look she always gets when she knows something other people don't. "Your pet," she says, "your Michael. He's come back."

  


* * *

  


"Not mine," Selene says, absent, her gaze already far away, and Erika rolls her eyes. Selene has always been odd about that sort of thing—never has pets, hates to be called Kraven's. It's just logic, to Erika: Kraven is the head of their coven, in Viktor's absence. They are all his, to greater or lesser degrees, and until today it was to Erika's benefit to be as much his as possible.

"Well, whoever he belongs to," Erika says, "he's here. Outside the gate—he's come up on the cameras. He's asking for you."

At that, Selene's stare comes back to Erika.

Erika remembers the way Michael had looked at her when he'd woken, the shock written all over his face. She hadn't done anything that unusual—clung to the ceiling, hissed. He'd startled her. It was obvious Selene hadn't told him anything. "He doesn't know, does he?" Erika says, and is rewarded with a sharp sigh from Selene.

"There wasn't time to tell him," Selene admits. "He's going to change soon."

"So give him to the lycans," Erika says, exasperated, but even before the last word leaves her mouth, Selene is shaking her head.

"Lucian wants him," Selene says. "Wants him enough that he came for Michael himself, bit Michael himself, after five hundred years keeping out of sight." One of her hands is curled into a fist on the windowsill; she stares at it for a moment. "And I don't know why. What should Lucian want him for—him, specifically him?"

Erika makes a considering face. "Yes," she says, deliberately light, "he didn't seem all that exceptional, did he?"

Selene gives her a flat look. "There must be a reason," she says. "I won't give him to Lucian unless I know what it is."

"Well, you can't let him loose, and you can't let him in. Kraven would never allow it." Erika grimaces at the very idea. Even her best efforts couldn't keep that quiet for more than fifteen minutes.

Selene turns away and goes still; for a moment she's a perfect silhouette against the glass and the rain. It makes Erika's chest ache a little, just looking at her. Erika appreciates beauty. Pity Selene can't find anything to appreciate about Erika in turn.

"He doesn't need to know," Selene says at last. "Surely we have enough to hold him."

"Kahn would," Erika agrees, "but how can you get him inside without—"

She stops. Selene is looking at her, thoughtful.

  


* * *

  


Selene will appreciate this gun—that's what Kahn is thinking at the moment Selene comes through the doorway.

"Selene," he says, pleased, and holds it up; and then he knows she must have come for something serious, because it's a gun—a _gun_ —and she doesn't even look at it.

"Kahn," she says. "I need your help."

What she asks is not a small thing, but she could have asked him for worse and he might have done it. Kraven used to be a man Kahn could understand, but it's been two hundred years since Kraven has done more than hold a gun with those ring-heavy fingers. But Selene—if there is anyone to whom Kahn owes more than the simple loyalty of coven member to coven member, it is she.

"Of course," Kahn says, when she has told him what she needs. "Half the rooms below ground don't even have cameras. It won't take long." This room has a camera; but not a microphone, and Kraven has never stuck to Viktor's habit of keeping security staff who are able to read lips. Has chosen not to, Kahn sometimes thinks, and he wonders what it is Kraven says where only cameras can see.

"Good," Selene says, "because you won't have long. In ten minutes, the lights will go out; they'll stay that way as long as possible, but as long as possible—"

"May vary, depending on the circumstances," Kahn says, and nods. "It won't take long."

Selene looks at him; she doesn't quite smile, but her face softens, her gaze turns gentler. If Kraven had ever seen her face like that, Kahn thinks, he would never stop chasing her, not in ten thousand years.

And she would kill him after fifty. Kahn tries not to smile. Sometimes he wonders why she hasn't killed Kraven already, but there is an answer: Viktor. This is Viktor's coven, in Selene's eyes, and Viktor left it to Kraven; Kraven's what is left of Viktor, while Viktor sleeps, and Selene will not throw that aside.

Not unless she has a reason. And she must, given what she has asked Kahn to do.

They talk about guns for nine minutes and forty-five seconds; Kahn is just folding Selene's hand over the grip of one of his newest when everything goes dark.

Not long, Kahn thinks, and Selene would not lie. He's been considering what he will need for nine minutes and thirty seconds. He stays still for a moment, until the gun and Selene's hand both slip away in the dark; and then he moves.

  


* * *

  


Amelia sits for a while on the train, her closed phone in her hand. There's still a little time; the train ride back to the heart of the coven is a long one when begun near the coast of France. They will switch trains, but only once, much nearer to their destination, and not for another hour.

Selene's voice was calm, and she had no evidence except a glimpse of a necklace—and yet how could she have come across its description otherwise? Amelia has read every book in the archives, has written a third of them herself; every chronicle of Lucian's life has Viktor's fingerprints all over it, none of it bound for a book until Viktor had approved the text. There is nothing in any of them about Sonja's necklace.

And that Selene should have called at all means she finds the threat severe. Amelia looks out the window without seeing any of the view. There is no certainty to be had, not yet; but if what Selene has predicted comes to pass, Amelia will grant her honors beyond counting. And Kraven—Kraven will die screaming. If Lucian truly is alive, there can be no doubt: Kraven has been lying to them all for centuries, and to lie about such a thing is to betray the coven.

Amelia stands and slides her phone into her bag. She is alone in the compartment; she had requested it with a simple glance at the sound of her phone ringing, and Eszter and Orfeo had both bowed and left.

She opens the door. The rest of the car is open, and the council members turn to her as one.

She says nothing, only crosses the car. Amelia remembers the days when a journey like this would have been done over weeks, by horse; she could never have worn such a dress as this. It is silver and shimmering, and the rustle of the skirt is the only sound in the car.

The dress matches Amelia's sword very well. No other passengers on this train would have been permitted to bring crates with such contents aboard; but money does so much to ease difficulty. Amelia cracks the top crate open and slides her favorite blade free, inspects the edge. Not ideal, but she suspects it will be good enough.

"Lady Amelia?" says Eszter.

"We must make new arrangements," Amelia says without turning around, eyes still on her sword. "When we change trains, we will buy out the adjoining cars—whatever the cost. Once the train begins to move, you must take to hand whatever you most prefer."

"Will we be attacked in the station?" scoffs Joris.

A perfect opening; Amelia slides her sword back into the crate and turns, smiling. "We may," she says.

"Why get on the train at all?" says Zlata coolly. "Why should we give them—"

"We will not run," Amelia says, and her tone is not unkind but Zlata must see something on her face, because the other vampire subsides into silence. "Those who would assault the council must suffer the consequences." Amelia casts an eye around the train car, over their faces: Eszter alight and eager, Joris's usual sneer replaced by thoughtfulness, Orfeo icy and expressionless. "When they come for us, we will be waiting."

  


* * *

  


Michael looks like—like a wet dog, Selene thinks, all puns aside. He's given up yelling into the intercom, and now he's peering through the gate, through the rain, trying to understand why the lights have all gone out.

Lucky for him that they have. If the power were still on, he'd be twitching on the ground after putting so much as a finger on the gate.

"Selene!" he says loudly when he sees her, and Selene tries not to grimace. "Selene—"

"Back up," Selene says.

"What? Look, I went back to the hospital and they were there already—the police, they're after me—"

"Back up," Selene says a little more sharply, and when Michael blinks and takes a step back, she launches herself into the air.

She doesn't have to do anything extraordinary, only get a foot onto the top of the gate and tip herself over. Michael swears somewhere below her and stumbles back another step or two, and she lands in the mud in front of him, flicking damp hair out of her eyes.

"Jesus fuck," Michael says, "what _are_ you?"

"It doesn't matter," Selene says, and grabs his arm.

She could throw him over, she thinks, but he'd probably get hurt, and until he changes he'd have trouble healing it. There's a hidden keypad for the gate, but with the power out it won't work.

So she takes him around the mansion to a spot where the top of the wall has begun to crumble. It's not bad yet, but she can jump to the top and still reach low enough to grab Michael's hand. She pulls him up with one arm until he can scrabble over, and then lowers him down the other side.

"Why are you doing this?" he says, breathing hard, when she lands beside him.

"Because you need help," she says.

His shoulder is bleeding anew, the bite wound reopened by the effort of getting over the wall. He's inside the wall, now; he can't run without her help.

Selene grabs his shoulder, listens to him hiss. "What are you—"

"You've been bitten by a werewolf," she says. "The woman who was there when you woke, Erika—"

"Yeah, yeah, you should have seen her fucking teeth," he says breathlessly, and then he goes still. "No, wait, I get it. Vampire, right?"

It's not hard to bring on the change with the smell of his blood so thick in the air. Selene turns to him with her teeth sharp against her tongue, knows her eyes are a starlight-pale blue. "Yes," she says. "Come on, we don't have much time."

Michael loses it a little, half-laughing and stumbling, gasping for breath—shock, Selene thinks, but it doesn't matter. Shock will be the least of his problems if the lights come back on while they're still wandering around on the grounds.

The nearest door to the room Kahn's setting up is still open; Selene propped it with a pebble before she headed out to the gate. Selene swings it open and kicks the pebble back out before she hauls Michael through.

There's light somewhere, probably from a window—not enough for Michael, but Selene can see well enough. Kahn is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed; behind him there's a bed, cuffs at the headboard and footboard, and he's so smooth with the syringe in his hand that Michael doesn't even start to object until the needle's already in his arm.

"Thought you might tell him," Kahn says quietly as Michael's breathing begins to slow. "Figured it might be a good idea to calm him down a little."

Selene nods, which says thank you as well as the words could have; and then she leads Michael to the bed and makes him sit, and clicks the first cuff shut around his wrist.

  


* * *

  


Erika comes toward Kraven's chambers from a completely different direction than the breaker. Her expression is carefully chosen: if she were truly afraid and confused, she'd never let it show all the way.

Kraven's door opens before she can reach it, and he comes storming out; she flattens herself against the wall when his gaze reaches her, exactly the way he likes her to when he's angry. "Kraven," she says.

"What is it," he snarls, "what's happened?"

"I—I don't know—"

He shoves at her shoulder with a growl.

How fortunate, that what she would have said before and what she wants to say now are identical. "Maybe—maybe it was Selene," she murmurs, coaxing and wary at once, and sidles a little closer to him. "It would be just like her to go after that dog of hers. She'd know you wouldn't want her to; she wouldn't bother asking, she never does—"

Kraven pushes her again, hard enough that she hits the wall, but she knows better than to object. His anger now is for Selene. He's just misdirecting it, as he so often does. " _Dog_?" Kraven says.

Erika adopts a look of tremendous surprise. "She didn't tell you?" she says. "I thought for sure she'd have—he was bitten by a lycan, he's—"

Kraven roars inarticulately. "I don't have _time_ for this," he shouts, slamming a fist into the wall hard enough to crack it. "Of all the—" He stops, and turns to look at her.

She looks back invitingly, leaps on the opportunity provided by the pause the way any vampire with a brain would. "There must be something I can do," she says, and sinks to her knees—it's a good touch, she can tell by the look in his eyes that he likes it. "Please, my lord—let me help you."

"Yes," he says, suddenly thoughtful, and lays a hand against her hair. "Yes, of course. You've always been such a good girl, haven't you."

She sighs under his hand, relaxes, and he rubs a thumb along her hairline in reward.

"It's Kahn," Kraven says, and Erika has to work not to tense up again. "Kahn and his team. They're the ones who are supposed to go to the station for the council. I need them here. You have to tell Kahn not to leave, that Soren will be going instead."

"Yes, my lord," Erika murmurs, rising, and backs away toward the stairs.

 

*

 

By the time she's reached the basement room, the lights have come back on; Michael is chained down, wet and dirty and apparently asleep, and Kahn and Selene are standing over him, conferring in quiet voices.

"Kraven sent me," Erika says, and they both look up. "For you," she clarifies, with a nod toward Kahn. "To tell you not to meet the train."

Selene's face goes still—well, stiller. She's wet, too, but she wears it better than Michael. "Who is he sending instead?"

"Soren," Erika says.

Kahn lets out a slow breath. "He really is trying to kill Amelia," he says.

"We don't have any proof yet," Selene says quietly, but the look on her face says she agrees.

And why shouldn't she? Kraven has known Amelia's plans for days, weeks; why should he switch teams now? He left Kahn in place as long as possible, Kahn who is only as loyal to him as the coven requires, and no questions were raised. Now, amidst chaos, at the last possible moment, he sends Soren instead—by the time anyone could have thought to ask, Amelia would already have been dead.

But Amelia's been warned, and she has been killing vampires and lycans both for longer than any of the three of them have been alive.

"He won't succeed," Erika says, with the kind of smug look Selene has so often disdained her for; and now, at last, Selene looks at her without distaste, and maybe even almost smiles back.

  


* * *

  


They engaged two cars; the council could have fit in one, but it is not the habit of the council, to take up only so much room as they need and no more.

By the time they board the second train, four cars are theirs. By the time the second train begins to slow, every member of the council has at least one weapon to hand.

They had paid from the beginning to remain aboard after the other passengers had departed, and to disembark in an unused portion of the station. As the train rumbles further through the dark, Amelia tightens her grip upon her sword, and lets herself smile.

It has been so long since she has felt this—the tension of the muscles, the openness to every sound and motion, the wait before the strike. Amelia loves the complexity of modernity, but she has spent centuries slaying men and women from horseback and less than a hundred years owning telephones.

The train grinds to a halt and there is stillness, silence, for a long moment before the thump of lycan feet against metal. Two cars down. Amelia smiles.

The lycans tear through the outside of the train like it is tin foil, and the expressions on their transformed faces when they find no vampires inside is something Amelia wishes she could see. The dogs growl and snarl and tear the empty cars apart, and Amelia crouches in the darkness one car over, her silver skirts pooling around her, and lifts her sword.

"Now," she says, just loud enough for every vampire behind her to hear; and then she stands and shears through the door between cars with one swing.

The beasts look up as one, and to their credit, they are fast: Amelia has barely ripped the loose metal aside with her free hand when the first one is upon her. The space is narrow, they cannot come at her except one at a time. She is free to focus on the first and let Eszter and her throwing knives work through the spaces.

The first wolf is gray and narrow, snarling, and Amelia hurls her fist into his chest hard enough to break even lycan bones. He doesn't slow, but blood froths up amidst the saliva on his muzzle.

He swipes claws at her face, and she bends away and then down to dodge—the limited space may keep the wolves off her, but it also gives her less to work with. From low enough down, though, she can swing the sword down overhand.

When Amelia first became a vampire, adjusting her tactics was difficult. She had learned how to use a sword while human, from parents who did not want any of their daughters raped and murdered, and she had been used to human rules, used to having to conserve her strength.

Vampire fighting is endlessly different. What she does now would be idiocy if a human tried it—from below against a taller opponent, little to no leverage, no weight behind the blow. But she is a vampire, and none of those things matter.

The lycan catches her sword against his forearm; her blade doesn't sever the bone, but does strike it. The lycan howls and Amelia yanks the sword down, grabbing at his leg—she doesn't have to look to aim when she thrusts upward.

She's close enough that it goes in under the ribs, up through his torso; he shrieks and flails, catching one of her bare shoulders with his claws, but when she slides the sword loose, he crumples, and he doesn't get up again.

The one behind him already has one of Eszter's shining knives in his shoulder, and he's young: it only takes one strike to slash his throat open.

Amelia loses count quickly after that. It's almost a sign of respect, really, that Lucian sent so many—that he thinks the council would fight hard enough to make them all necessary. Perhaps that's why she pauses, toward the end.

She recognizes him, too, the large one with the long dark fur. He goes by Raze, these days; he's always favored sharp, simple names, ever since Lucian gave him the chance to choose his own.

Whatever the reason, Amelia stops with her sword half an inch from his throat. He's bleeding onto the floor of the train car, silver in his torso and his pack dying around him. But he's given a good account of himself, which is no less than Amelia expects from a dog as old as Raze: Joris is on the floor beside him, half of his head crushed beneath one of Raze's paws.

"Change back," Amelia says—not all that loudly, but she knows he can hear her, even over the sounds of vampires being thrown through windows and lycans screaming.

He does, fur melting away like frost.

"I don't blame you," Amelia says, and smiles at him. "If you had given me the chance to kill Lucian with my own two hands, I would have taken it."

Raze is smart, and an excellent liar. "Too bad for you Lucian's already dead," he says in his thunder-deep drawl, and his heartbeat doesn't so much as flicker.

"Mmhmm," Amelia says. "Lycans kill vampires, and vampires kill lycans; that is the nature of our war. My greatest quarrel today is not with you, but with those who betrayed me to you. Tell me where they are, and we may call this skirmish a draw."

Raze hesitates for a moment; but as much as it is against his nature to cooperate, she is offering to leave lycans alive in favor of killing vampires. Raze is old and strong, and the ties of pack within him are just as old, just as strong.

"Stop them now," he says, "and I'll tell you."

"Enough," Amelia says, only slightly louder, and the battle around them slows.

"Lady," Orfeo says, protesting, lycan blood spattered in a warm red arc over his cheek.

"Until tonight, I am still your elder," Amelia says, and Orfeo drops to his knees at the chastisement. "Enough," she repeats, louder still, and every vampire in the train car stops moving.

Raze tells her what she wants to know.

 

*

 

The team isn't far away—in an alley near the train tracks. Near enough to watch, and near enough to see what has gone wrong.

Two of them are arguing in harsh voices when Amelia steps into the alley.

"Kraven sent you?" she says, conversational. There is still lycan blood dripping from her sword.

All of them look at her, and the two who were speaking go silent. One of them, Amelia knows. Soren. A good choice—Kraven's pit bull, they call him these days, or so Amelia hears. He is nearly as old as she, though he never advanced as far. He likes inflicting pain; in comparison to that, he cares little for the subtler uses of power.

"Yes," Soren says, stepping forward.

"The lycans came so suddenly," the other one blurts. Amelia looks at her; she's blatantly nervous, her gaze flicking from Amelia to Soren and back again. "Are you—hurt, Lady Amelia?"

Amelia turns to consider her shoulder. "Not badly," she says.

Zlata steps into her peripheral vision—like Amelia, she had already dressed for the ceremony, and her slim, gleaming white gown goes badly with the bloody twin knives in her hands. The footsteps on the other side are Orfeo, Amelia knows, Orfeo and his gun. She wonders whether he's carrying his own, full of silver, or has traded it for a dead lycan's pistol and UV rounds.

Amelia looks back at Soren, adjusts her face to a look of gentle sympathy. "You know I can't allow it," she says.

He shifts his weight, puts his hands to the handles of those great long whips he so loves. The vampire beside him opens her mouth, begins an unwise lie; Amelia ignores her words.

"Betrayal of the coven cannot be forgiven." The sound of Amelia's voice silences the woman. "The very nature of betrayal forbids trust of the one who has committed it; and when trust is gone, there is nothing."

Soren says nothing. He knows her, knows that she means it. What is there left to say?

He swings the first whip and Amelia her sword at the same moment; they meet in the air. The whip scores Amelia's cheek with a sharp flare of pain—but her sword strikes where she intended it to, just between two of the whip's silver teeth, and the whip is sheared off halfway down its length. Zlata has rushed forward to slice at Soren's third companion, a tall pale man Amelia does not know on sight; Orfeo has shot the woman in the head and the throat, and the wounds shimmer blue and then crisp black. He did steal a lycan gun.

Amelia leaps over the sweep of Soren's second whip, and then catches the first in her free hand as Soren reverses its swing; the silver cuts her, of course it does, but not the way it would a lycan, and once Amelia reaches the mansion there will be more than enough blood for her to heal it up.

She keeps her hold upon it even as the second whip turns, begins to whistle nearer—she holds her sword out, angled, and the second whip's curving tip slices open her jaw before it wraps around her sword blade.

Amelia is no human, to lose her grip; she lets the sword go, so that Soren wastes his attention on flinging it away, and in a single leap she throws herself into the air and lands behind him.

She is still holding the end of the whip she sliced in half, and she slung it around the side of his neck as she leapt: two short paces and she can reach over his shoulder and take up the slack of it across his chest.

Despite the many centuries she has lived, Amelia is in some ways unchanged; in the land and time of her birth, strangling was not counted as a clean death. The teeth of Soren's whips are sharp, and under the strength of Amelia's hands they are as good as a garrote—better. He's gone before she cuts through the spine, but she finishes anyway. It's respectful.

Not a pleasant night's work, but it had to be done. Betrayal of the coven cannot be forgiven.

  


* * *

  


Kahn follows Erika up to the eastern security room, and Erika is impressed: he kneels to Kraven with something not unlike sincerity, no hint on his face that he has just been in the basement helping Selene with her puppy.

"Get your team to the perimeter," Kraven snaps, fear making him gracious. "Nitika's can't cover the grounds alone, you need to—"

"My lord," says a very brave man with a hand radio—Fiorino, if Erika remembers correctly. He's a new turn, one of Pieter's picks, and Pieter does like the calm ones.

"What?" Kraven says, nearly snarling.

"They have something," Fiorino says, and that's how they discover the van full of lycans in the woods.

 

*

 

"Hmm," Kraven says, his tone almost sing-song as he looks the dogs over. "Erika, my dear, do you see it? One of these things is not like the others."

It's easy to respond: he's right. The van parked beneath the trees had been full of great hulking lycans, beasts even when they weren't turned, more muscle than brain—and one narrow little man with spectacles, shifty-eyed and unimpressive.

Erika walks up to Fiorino, carefully timing the click of her heels against the floor, and with a sloe-eyed glance up at him she slides his gun from its place at his hip. A standard security weapon for the mansion is loaded full of silver.

She's not exactly a Deathdealer, but it takes no particular skill with violence to stride over to the spectacled man and press the muzzle of the pistol to his shoulder. One shot makes him groan through his teeth; another in the other shoulder makes him cry out, and then she shoots him in the gut and he screams.

"Don't make him faint," Kraven says, half as an insult to the bleeding lycan, and Erika obediently sets the gun on the floor, sliding it back across the room to Fiorino with one shove of her foot.

"I'll just have to use a more delicate touch," she says, smiling down at the spectacled man; and then she jams two fingers into one of the wounds at his shoulder and settles her thumb against the joint.

She's not sure what it is that cracks when she applies enough pressure, but it makes him shriek. There's too much silver in him for him to heal it, let alone for it not to hurt, and he keens and cries and shakes under her hand.

"It doesn't matter what I tell you!" he says, when she moves for the other shoulder. "It does not matter—you do not have him."

"Who?" Kraven says, suddenly sharp.

The spectacled man smiles, one cheek spasming a little with leftover pain. "Michael Corvin," he says, each syllable dripping out with so much relish that it's almost like he knows what the name will do to Kraven.

" _Michael_?" Kraven spits. "That damned _dog_ —"

"Not yet," says the spectacled man. "His change is coming, you are right about that; but he is as good as human, for the moment. He has not yet joined us in the brotherhood of Lucian."

Kraven's face works, his teeth gritting—his pointed teeth, Erika sees, and his eyes are icing over with blue.

She crouches until she can look the spectacled man in the eye, and she pulls her bloodied hand from his shoulder and gently pats his cheek. "If he's not yet polluted," she says sweetly, "then what is it you want with him?"

The spectacled man laughs unsteadily. "He will be our greatest weapon," he says. "The scythe, in the hand of the reaper; and your house will fall as wheat—"

Kraven makes a disgusted noise. "I don't have time for this bullshit." He gestures to Erika, and to Kahn, who has been watching from the corner near the door. "Take him away—somewhere easy to clean. See what else you can find out."

"As you say, my lord," says Kahn, and he comes forward to take the spectacled man's other shoulder.

  


* * *

  


Whatever it is that Kahn gave Michael is still working, but Selene doesn't think it will for long. He's awake now, if silent; he can't seem to hold still, flexing his wrists and ankles and rattling his chains. Selene has her gun, but she'd rather not shoot him until it's absolutely necessary. She doesn't like to waste her bullets.

She turns at the sound of footsteps on the stairs: it's Erika, Erika and Kahn, and between them they are half-dragging a twitchy little lycan with spectacles.

"They found him outside," Erika says, letting go of the lycan's shoulder at the same moment Kahn does; the lycan goes to his knees with a little sound of relief. Apparently crumpling to the floor is less painful than careless fingers around gunshot wounds.

"There was a whole van of them," says Kahn, and then he nods toward Michael. "Looking for him."

The lycan lets out a wavering laugh. "We hoped you might lead us to him," he says to Selene, still chuckling. "We had no idea you were keeping him here—and neither does your lord. Well done."

Selene grabs his chin, forces his face up. "Why? Why do you want him?"

"Because my people tire of war," says the lycan, "and we wish to change the rules of this game." He pauses; she draws her hand away, and he takes the opportunity to look Michael over more carefully. "You can put off his turning, you know—"

"Yes, I'll be sure to shoot him when it gets close," Selene says, stepping away.

The lycan laughs again. "Inelegant," he says, "but then you have no incentive to handle it otherwise." He looks at Selene, thoughtful, and then tilts his head. "Of course, you could always bite him."

Selene doesn't even waste time staring at him. A bite from a lycan and a bite from a vampire together means death, everyone knows it; it is a transparent attempt to have Michael killed, and an idiotic one.

"You don't believe me," says the lycan.

Selene rewards him for this inanity with silence.

The lycan shrugs one shoulder—the less injured of the two, no doubt. "Think what you like. That is why we want him. He is special, your Michael Corvin. He is a descendant of Alexander—"

"Our lord Marcus who will wake tonight is a descendant of Alexander," Kahn says, because it is true. Marcus is the oldest of them, the first, and the son of Alexander Corvinus. All vampires are taught the legends.

"A _human_ descendant of Alexander," the lycan says. "It took us a long time to find him, but he holds indeed the blood of his fathers. No one bitten by both lycan and vampire survives, you know this—but he would."

"Lies," Selene says. Viktor would have called it heresy; but if it could be done without ending in death or madness, Selene can see the value in it. If it could be done—a vampire given daylight, made twice as strong—the council would amend the covenant in a moment. But it cannot be done.

The lycan grins. "Abomination," he murmurs. "That is what your precious covenant says. But we have no covenant, and he is the one."

Selene looks at Erika, at Kahn, and then there is a sigh from the bed. Michael.

"So that's why," he says fuzzily.

Selene crosses the room to touch the back of his hand—warm, feverish for a human, but not yet wolf-hot. There is still time. "What?" she says.

"That whackjob who bit me," Michael says. His eyes have been closed much of the time, but now he cracks one open blearily. "I've been seeing things—I think they happened to him. But I didn't understand."

"Didn't understand what?" Selene says.

Michael shifts, face scrunching up briefly in discomfort. "Why they killed Sonja," he mutters. "Why Viktor killed her—for marrying him. They were so happy. I couldn't understand it."

Selene stares down at his flushed face. He must be hallucinating—making things up—has she ever said Viktor's name in front of him? He doesn't know what Viktor looks like—

When she turns around, the lycan's face has changed. His expression had been smug, impish—half the reason he'd seemed to be lying. But he looks solemn now. "If she had been further along," he says quietly, "she might have lived. Even through sunlight. She would have shared enough blood with the child—"

"Shut up," Selene says, and resists the foolish urge to put her face in her hands. A lycan story, concocted by Lucian; though how he might have passed it to Michael, she doesn't know—but it must be lies. It must be.

"She sort of looked like you," Michael murmurs behind her.

A lycan— _Lucian_ —and a vampire, married? It cannot be possible. In all her early studies of the covenant, all the long nights learning about the war, Viktor slowly teaching her the rules of her new life, he said nothing of this. Everything Selene knows tells her there could not have been a child; at best it would have been a maddened beast, torn its mother apart from the inside out. And Lucian and his clan were animals, slaughtering humans and vampires alike by the thousands. _That_ is how the war began. Surely Viktor would not lie about such a thing—not to the coven, not to her—

"Interesting," Erika says into the silence, and then tilts her head. "That car on the driveway should be Amelia, don't you think?"

Selene listens: Erika's right, there is a crunching of gravel somewhere above them. The timing is right—and Amelia is older even than Viktor, nearly as old as Marcus. Surely she knows the truth.

  


* * *

  


There's a fair amount of blood spattered across her silver dress, but Amelia decides she doesn't mind it. In the old days, formal clothes weren't formal without a little blood on the sleeve. It meant even the most foolish human lords knew a vampire's household on sight; it had cut down wonderfully on the number of impromptu executions necessary after accidental insults.

The rain is light as she climbs the stairs; she pauses in it for a moment to wipe at her jaw. Even without a little fresh blood to drink, the wound made by Soren's whip is closing, and drying blood is itchy.

Kraven has been warned of her arrival, she can see that as soon as she enters the council room—but only just. He has had enough time to compose himself, but not enough time to run.

He kneels gracefully—he's always been so very good with the formalities. But: betrayal of the coven cannot be forgiven.

Amelia looks at him, and then away, and makes none of the usual signals of acknowledgement. He must know what that means, because he stands abruptly—which is fair enough. Protocol will not save him, after all.

"My lady," he says quickly, but he gets no further.

The doors open for a blond—a young one, Erika. Amelia met her for the first time only a century ago as a new addition to the coven, after Viktor performed the wakening. And behind her—perfect, Amelia could not have orchestrated better herself. Behind her is Selene.

Erika kneels at least as prettily as Kraven, and if she and Selene have allied themselves today, Amelia owes them both attention. Amelia strides forward to lay a hand on Erika's lovely hair, and Erika bows her head beneath the touch.

"My lady Amelia," Erika says. "I am glad that you are well."

There is no bite in her tone; she strikes a blow against Kraven only with the content of her words, but it is enough to make him stare at her. He did not expect this, Amelia surmises. Erika and Selene have handled this well.

Amelia smiles down at Erika, and then at Selene, who kneels beside her. Selene's motions are somewhat more economical, but Amelia knows better than to think it is deliberate insult. Selene saves her grace for killing.

"Very well indeed, my servants," Amelia says gently, and touches Selene's shoulder. "I believe you have something to show me?"

Selene rises. "Yes, my lady," she says, and tilts her head to bare the side of her neck.

The bite can be arousing, but that is not its purpose; it is a sharing, a binding. Almost every coven member has bitten another, blood and life and memory passed between them all in ways even the closest human families cannot precisely achieve. When Amelia's teeth sink into Selene's throat, she _is_ Selene for a moment, Selene's blood in her mouth and Selene's life in her mind.

She draws back slowly, licks off the excess before she moves away—it's only courteous. Leaving another's blood to drip and spatter, to be wasted, is an insult.

It came in flashes; Selene is not trained to arrange her memories neatly for a bite. But Amelia is fairly certain she has what she needed.

"So Lucian is alive," she says, and is rewarded with a flinch from Kraven. "And you have Michael Corvin. Hybrid-capable blood—that is what the dog told you?"

"Yes, my lady," says Selene, and her voice is as calmly controlled as ever but Amelia would swear there is a thread of satisfaction in it.

"You _have_ him?" Kraven spits. " _Here_?"

"In this room, only the coven speaks," Amelia says sharply, and crosses the floor in three strides to slap him. The sound of it rings against the walls; she puts enough strength into her arm to knock him down. "You have betrayed the coven so deeply that there is not a word for what you are."

She hit him hard, but she didn't break his neck; he could get up, if he wished.

He stays on the floor, and he does not look up.

Amelia looks at him for a long moment, and then kneels down, smoothing her silver skirts around her. She touches Kraven's hand. "You made a deal with him," she says gently. "You must be punished, you know that, and there can be no mercy. But tell me what he wanted, and I will not have your name stricken from the annals. Your story will join the archive in honesty—honesty in all respects, from the depths of your treachery to the heights of your glory."

At that, he turns his head and meets her eyes.

"I was glorious once," he whispers.

Amelia lifts a hand to his hair. "You were," she says, soft. "Tell me."

He does.

 

*

 

In its outlines, it is not particularly creative. A coup, in essence: Amelia dead, Viktor and Marcus asleep, no one to stop Kraven from taking the coven for his own. Probably he would not have killed Viktor and Marcus, at least not right away—not until he could find a way to bite them himself, gain all they had been in an instant. Kraven would have ruled unchallenged, and in return for his aid, Lucian would have bought—

"Peace?" Amelia repeats, startled.

"No more vampires slaughtering his dogs," Kraven says tiredly. A sort of calm has come over him, the kind Amelia has seen come over doomed men sometimes. "If he had gotten the hybrid, perhaps he would even have been able to enforce it. And Viktor," Kraven adds. "If I raised Viktor to bite him, Lucian was to be informed, and permitted to be the one to kill him. That was all."

Amelia stands. All vampires, all lycans, were human once, or at least hold the seeds of humanity within their flesh; like humans, they seek again and again to best each other in the dispensation of death. This Michael Corvin would have been Lucian's nuclear bomb. Against an army of a thousand hybrids—real hybrids, viable hybrids—even Deathdealers would suffer incredible losses.

Even lycans would. Amelia considers it. The terms of the covenant forbid it, of course; but Amelia was there when the covenant was written. What she remembers is not the grand forging of a vampire alliance, not what they tell the young ones—it is Viktor and Marcus yelling at each other, it is how sore her thighs were from riding for hours the day before and how many times they forced the scribe to recopy with a new piece of phrasing.

Now it is a new day, a new age—the council was sour with her for dragging them off to America, but even Europe these days is filled with people who would have been burned as heretics when Amelia was a child. Things change. She has sometimes thought the shared sleep of the elders does the coven more harm than good; each time one of them wakes they have missed two hundred years, and even all the memories they drink from one another's necks cannot fill in the gap. Marcus will rise this evening to learn with startlement about video cameras, computers—the cell phone that saved Amelia today will be a mystery to him.

"Intriguing," Amelia says aloud, and looks at Selene. "You—and you," she adds, with a nod toward Erika. "The two of you will go to Lucian, and see if he will parley with those who are not traitors to the coven." She takes a single step, just far enough that her hand lands readily in Kraven's hair; she takes the length of it in her fist. "He is likely to doubt your sincerity," she says, and tilts Kraven's head back to look him in the eye. "It would be wise to bring him a gift."

  


* * *

  


The council room is not the right place to ask. Erika thought Selene so indelicate that she had said so, downstairs; but Selene had known already. When Amelia arrived and Kraven was exposed at last, there would be a certain degree of—pageantry, which it would be unwise to disrupt.

And there had been, and Selene had carefully played her part. But now it was over, and her questions had not been answered.

Each of the elders has rooms in the mansion, carefully maintained during their two hundred years' sleep—or in their absence, though Amelia is the first to have strayed so far during her term of awareness. Amelia's suite is high in the west wing; once the sun itself has vanished, Amelia likes to watch its gold-and-scarlet death throes.

Selene doesn't pause for the guards, and they don't stop her from opening the door. Kraven had loved to make people wait, to parade even the smallest exercise of his power before them—not that Amelia has not done the same now and again, but she has never made it a habit. She is not Viktor, but Selene would prefer almost anyone to Kraven.

Amelia has changed her dress; the blood-spattered silver is gone, exchanged for a shimmering dark blue. Impractical for killing, Selene thinks—but then Amelia fended off lycans and Soren both in the silver. Impractical, but perhaps not unmanageable.

"I thought you might come," Amelia says without turning around; she is facing a small table littered with pins, long fingers molding her hair against her head. "I could not see it all, but he said something to you—the lycan, and Michael. And you saw the necklace."

"The necklace," Selene repeats, and then remembers: the quartered circle, the pale green stone.

"Sonja's necklace," Amelia says, pushing one more pin into place, and then at last she turns. "I told you no other lycan would have touched it, and that is true. They knew whose it was."

Selene is still for a moment, as if the lack of motion will make this easier to understand. "Then it is true. Lucian was married to a vampire."

Amelia looks at her carefully, and then sighs. "It is not in the archives," she says. "It is not anywhere, except in the minds of those old enough to remember. I was not there for all of it, but I have drunk Viktor's blood, as he has drunk mine; and he drank Sonja's, once."

"He knew her before she was executed," Selene says slowly.

"She was his daughter," says Amelia, as though the saying of it does not tilt Selene's world on its side. "Lucian was his slave, and Sonja was his daughter. She would have borne him a grandchild, if he had not burned her first." Amelia drew in a slow breath, and then sighed. "There were reasons to think ill of it—a dozen, a hundred. We call them dogs now, but in those days we believed it; his daughter had betrayed him to lie with a beast, to bear a child that for all we knew would be a maddened half-animal."

"No one—" _stopped him_ , Selene nearly says, but, no, of course they hadn't. Viktor had been lord, master of a great keep.

"She was his daughter," Amelia repeats. "No one else had a claim over her to match that, except Sonja herself; and she had the chance but did not kill him. He did not show her the same mercy."

"And that is why Lucian assaulted the keep," Selene says. "Not because vampires had interfered with his slaughter." She can believe that Viktor might have killed his own daughter—might have regretted it, might have saved Selene herself out of old guilt even if he could not save her family. He never told her that he had a daughter, but that is a lie of omission only. The lies he has told her about the beginning of the war cannot be excused so.

"He did assault the keep," Amelia says. "The rest is not a lie: he and his wolves murdered many hundreds of our kin on that day, and we could not but seek retribution. Yes, it is true, Viktor was not innocent of cruelty—does that wash the blood from Lucian's hands?"

"No," Selene says, because it is true; and yet. Little wonder Lucian would barter peace for the chance to kill Viktor with his own hand—he wages war because Viktor lives and Sonja does not, not because he loves death. He is not a monster. He is someone Selene can understand.

Understanding wipes Lucian's hands clean no better than Viktor's hardheartedness; but, still, it changes things. Selene will not look at him with the same eyes.

Amelia is still watching her. "Thank you for telling me," Selene says, and kneels. "We have Michael Corvin's blood, and Kraven, but I suspect that is not all Lucian will want."

Amelia nods. "Erika's blood," she says. "She is strong, but not too old; if there is transference, she will hand him no deep secrets. You have my permission to give it to him."

"You know we do not need him," Selene says. "We found lycans in the woods; some of them must still be alive."

"If we get what we want without him," Amelia says, "he will not get what he wants, and that means he will not stop trying. He hid from us—from all of us, from the very best of us—for centuries upon centuries; he meant to have my blood and nearly took it. If there is to be a chance he will succeed, _we_ must control that chance. Do you understand?"

Selene does; and sees, all at once, a truth that has long eluded her. This negotiation, these politics—this is its own kind of war. If they must come to battle, Amelia seeks to hold the high ground. "I do," Selene says. "Thank you, my lady," and she bows her head.

  


* * *

  


Michael Corvin is moving more, now, jerking on the bed and rattling his chains, but Erika can't help wanting to look at him closely. Strange, that he's so important. He's not bad, she supposes, but she's seen far prettier humans, far stronger and smarter ones. Then again, he's had Selene chasing after him for days now, defying Kraven for him—Erika has never achieved as much. Perhaps she should have let herself be bitten by a lycan.

"Come on," Selene says behind her, and only then does Erika register the sound of her feet on the steps. "We should go."

Lucian lives, Kraven topples, Amelia sends them to the lycans for peace—and yet Selene is, as ever, unchanged. It makes Erika want to smile, so she does.

"He won't last until you return," says the narrow little lycan—Kahn chained him to the wall while they were upstairs, and he's watching Michael himself with those shifty eyes.

"I haven't shot him yet," Kahn says from the corner of the room; but Selene takes a step closer to the bed and then, slowly, shakes her head.

"No," she says. "No—let him. Give him blood; perhaps it will seem like a kill. Let him turn."

Kahn shrugs agreement, as willing to let it happen as to stop it. "Either way, the chains will hold," he says, and then: "Good luck."

"Thank you," says Selene, "but we won't need it."

 

*

 

Kraven is chained and already inside the car—in the rear seat, behind a partition, so that he can't try to kill them on the way. Erika slides into the middle seat, and smiles at the thump against the metal behind her. He must have heard the door open.

She'll miss him, a little; he could be pleasant in his better moods, sometimes let her sit close, and murmured smug and unkind things about the others under his breath. He kissed well, even if he fucked badly, and treachery had not made him handle the coven poorly. He had meant it to be his, after all; he had taken good care of them all.

But he must have known the risks when he began this—when he let Lucian go, six hundred years ago. He gambled and lost, and now reaps what he sowed. That's how these things go.

She'll miss him; but she doesn't sorrow for him. She looks up when Selene gets into the car, and she smiles.

"Shouldn't you be a little more uncomfortable?" Selene says dryly, and then, in an echo of Erika's own thoughts not long ago: "You're no Deathdealer."

Erika laughs. "I've seen lycans before," she says. "I've chosen and I've chosen well—you saved Amelia, and she knows I've helped you. She regards us as a pair, associates me with you and you with Kraven's plot falling down around his ears; and she's chosen me to represent her." Erika shakes her head and laughs again. "This is the best day of my life."

"Mm," Selene murmurs. "Well, talk all you like—just don't do anything stupid. How's your aim?"

"Not yours," Erika says, "but I know which end of the gun to point at the lycan."

Selene gives her a flat look, and holds out one of her guns. Selene never appreciates Erika's little jokes.

"Don't point it at anyone unless you have to," Selene says.

Erika snorts. "As you so recently pointed out," she says, "I'm not you. I don't confuse conversation with violence."

"Keep it that way," Selene says, but she sits back as though, just maybe, she's satisfied.

The car can't take them all the way. When they have to go below the street, Selene's the one to take Kraven's chains by the middle, and she makes him go first. "If one of them sees us coming and takes a shot at us," she says, "I'd rather it hit him."

"Oh, I agree," Erika says, airy, and stays quite happily in the back.

But no one shoots at them. When they reach a grating, Selene makes Kraven bang on it until it rings like a bell, and within fifteen seconds there are three lycans on the other side, shirtless and growling. "Take us to Lucian," Kraven grits out.

One of the lycans snorts. "Put down your guns," he says.

"Your weapons are with you all the time," Selene says, glancing pointedly at his hands.

The lycan crosses his arms. "You could tear a lycan's head off with your bare hands as readily as I with my claws," he says. "We are lenient: we only ask that you leave your guns, not that you cut off your arms."

When he puts it like that, Erika thinks, it sounds quite reasonable.

She's the first to set her gun down. Not in the puddle that's right at her feet—it's Selene's gun, probably an excellent one, and there's more than one reason Erika would prefer not to mistreat it.

When Erika looks up again, Selene is watching her, mouth tight. "If a lycan came to the mansion," Erika murmurs, "you wouldn't let him come inside with a sword."

"I wouldn't let him come inside at all," Selene says, but she sets her own gun down about a foot from the grating.

The lycan in the middle nods grudgingly, and the other two move to swing the grating open. Selene shoves Kraven through, and Erika doesn't need an invitation to follow. She could, perhaps, stay with the guns, instead of venturing deep into the tunnels of a lycan warren; but Erika suspects that right behind Selene is always the safest place to be.

  


* * *

  


Lucian is as Selene remembers him: slight, narrow, unassuming. All his power, all his violence, is chained up inside, visible only in the motion of his body and his eyes. In a photograph, he would look vaguely handsome but uninteresting; in person, Selene is wary even when he smiles.

Which he does, the moment he turns around to greet them. "Ah," he says, and his voice is like the rest of him: the flat of a knife, danger temporarily leashed. He grins widely at Kraven, and then looks at Selene. "So you figured it out, then."

"Yes," Selene says.

Lucian claps his hands and then rubs them together briskly. "Well done," he says, "well done. You haven't brought an army with you, so I freely assume you aren't here to kill me."

"No," Selene says.

"Such eloquence," Lucian murmurs. "What are you here for, if you don't mind my asking?"

Selene looks at him, and for once is not sure what she sees. She is here for a reason—for several reasons, all of which are quite good and none of which involve killing. And yet killing is her life's work. She has never learned to _talk_ to lycans.

"To make you a deal," Erika says.

Lucian's gaze slides past Selene for the first time. "Well, aren't you lovely," he says.

Erika dips an almost sarcastic curtsey; it makes Lucian laugh.

"I know this one," he says, nodding to Selene, "but who are you?"

"Erika," she says. "Only a few centuries to my name, and I've not been sent to battle."

"Then little wonder we haven't seen you," Lucian says, and there is a small thread of bitterness in his voice.

"You see me today," Erika says, and that makes Lucian pause and look at her for a long moment.

"So I do," he says, half to himself. "And what deal would you make with me, lovely Erika?"

"I do not make it in my own name," Erika says. "We come on behalf of the lady Amelia."

"Ah, yes," Lucian says. "The lady Amelia—usually such a thorough killer. We used to call her Lady Sword, as though it were her only name. And yet just this evening she let my oldest companion live. Did you know that?"

Selene didn't, but she can guess. At the train station—Amelia can kill lycans any day she likes, but Soren and his team could only be permitted to betray her once. They were the more essential target.

"In return," Lucian says, "I will hear the deal offered by the lady Amelia, though I make no guarantees that I will agree to it."

"Of course not," Erika says warmly. Of course she likes him, Selene thinks. He talks so much. "But first things first: the lady Amelia would grant you the traitor Kraven, as a gift."

Lucian looks Kraven up and down, gaze pausing upon the chains that bind his hands. "My ally," he says slowly, "given back to me?"

"The man who lost you three-quarters of those you sent for Amelia," Erika says. "Did he not promise you success, and instead only manage to cost you lives? Have you not waited six hundred years for a chance that he let go to waste?"

Lucian's gaze returns to Kraven's face, and turns hard.

"He mentioned you to me," Selene says. "When I saw you—I did not know who you were. Until he spoke of you as though you were alive."

"A foolish error," Lucian murmurs, chiding, his stare still steady upon Kraven.

Kraven laughs raggedly. "Is that why you left so quickly," he says to Selene, not really asking. "I don't even remember saying it." He shakes his head. "What do you think you'll get for this, Selene? What will your precious Viktor think of you, overturning me in his absence—"

"Viktor will understand the necessity," Selene says, "when I tell him what you've done."

"He _chose_ me," Kraven says loudly. " _Me_. You must have wondered why—you, his favored daughter—"

"I am not made to rule a house," Selene says, but Kraven isn't listening.

"He couldn't afford not to, that's why!" It comes out half a shout. "I know too much; he couldn't choose anyone but me or I'd have made him pay. It wasn't like with Tanis, nobody believed him—I had proof. Even you—"

He stops; Selene wants to hit him, but any such rapid movement could be misconstrued by Lucian, and misunderstandings with lycans are misunderstandings that end in blood. "Even I what," she says flatly.

"Even you would have had to listen," Kraven says, sneering. "Your beloved dark father—you have no idea."

"Now, now," Lucian says, and takes a step nearer, close enough to put a hand on Kraven's shoulder. "That's just taunting." He nods to Selene. "As a token of my good will in return," he says, and then Kraven cries out; Lucian is digging his fingers into the back of Kraven's shoulder, his hand half-changed, claws sinking deep.

The cry peters off into another sharp laugh. "As long as I'm going to die," Kraven says, "I might as well leave you weeping."

"That's the spirit," Lucian says, genial.

Kraven ignores him. "Viktor killed your family," he says without preamble. "Slaughtered them in the night and drained them dry while they screamed. He hated limiting himself to livestock, so he'd go out for a binge, and I was the one he called in to clean it up. Every time."

Selene stares at him. This is the most idiotic lie he could possibly have come up with. How could he think she would believe such a thing?

"And you should have died with them," Kraven spits. "But he couldn't bear it."

"Sonja," Erika says. Selene turns to her; she meets Selene's eyes without hesitation, and there is something like an apology in them. "Michael said you looked like her."

"No," Selene says quietly. "I don't believe you," she tells Kraven, and she doesn't let her voice shake. The feeling of doubt is natural; if she does not heed it, it is not real.

"Believe what you like," Kraven says. "You won't forget what I've said. One day you'll ask him, just to be sure—just to make that little nagging feeling go away. And he'll tell you what you want to hear; but he'll pause first. Wondering where you heard it, wondering what I might have said while he was sleeping. And you'll know then that I wasn't lying."

"And you will be vindicated from beyond the grave," Lucian says, sounding deeply bored, "for all the good it will do you." He clears his throat, and one of the lycans who led them down here sticks his head in. Lucian shakes Kraven's chain at him. "Go on," he says, "find somewhere to put him where his screeching won't disturb us."

"Not going to do it yourself?" Kraven snarls.

Lucian smiles at him. "No, I think I'll let Raze handle it," he says. "He was leading the pack that went to the train car, you know. One of those council vampires stabbed him quite hard. I'm sure he'll be glad to see you."

  


* * *

  


Selene doesn't look shaken—Selene never really looks shaken, Erika thinks. But there is a certain forced quality about the stillness of her face as she watches the lycan lead Kraven away. At the very least, Kraven has proven he knows Selene: the questions will linger. Selene is a Deathdealer. She does not find it rewarding to simply let things go.

"You did not come just to give me gifts," Lucian says, once Kraven is gone.

"No," Erika says, and steps forward to touch Selene's elbow.

Selene's case is at her waist—usually she keeps her guns in it, but right now it has the syringe of blood Kahn drew from Michael, stoppered, plus two empty syringes. Selene pulls out Michael's blood, and holds it up in the palm of her hand.

"Corvin's," she says, because Selene never uses two words where one will do. Erika has to fight the urge to smile.

Lucian's eyebrows rise. "Well," he says slowly. "You really do know everything, don't you? Singe, I suppose."

"The scientist?" Erika says.

"I knew it might take him some time," Lucian says. "I didn't think he'd been taken. But then I didn't think you had Corvin, either. More the fool I, hmm?" He pauses.

Erika studies his face for a moment, and takes a leap. "He's still alive," she says quietly. "Not badly hurt—or he won't be, at least, once the bullets are removed."

Lucian's expression doesn't change, but his shoulders relax the merest fraction, and he breathes in slowly. "Thank you," he says.

"The lady Amelia proposes a trade," Erika says, her tone still gentle. "Michael Corvin's blood, so that you may pursue your efforts—"

Lucian laughs. "And how can I be sure it's his?" he says. "Besides, if you know what I want it for, you know what I need. What will you do, bite me?"

"How did you know he was the one you wanted?" Erika says quickly. "Whatever confirmation you had of that, surely you can reproduce the effects with the blood we have brought you."

"And we will not bite you," Selene says. She's incredibly bad at sounding reassuring, but she makes up for it with her utter seriousness. She really is the worst liar, Erika thinks; Erika only hopes Lucian can see it, too. "Surely there remain secrets you wish to keep, and we will not take them from you. This offer is made in good faith."

"If you agree," Erika clarifies, "you shall have my blood as well." She takes an empty syringe from Selene and slides it into her arm—she practiced a few times while Kahn was drawing from Michael, so she'd be able to do it smoothly when the time came. It's so much less intimate, less—warm, than biting. But Erika can see the use in it.

She draws until her syringe is as full as Michael's, and then pulls the needle free.

"You may give both to whomever you please," she adds, "and you will have what you wish."

Lucian stares at the twin syringes, and then, abruptly, his gaze flickers upward to Selene. "And what will the lady Amelia ask in return?"

"Precisely what she has given," Selene says. "You would have the blood of a vampire, to complete the process. We must have the blood of a lycan. As we have said, your secrets are yours. There is a chance of transference; pick a young one, one who does not know all there is to know."

"So you haven't let Michael change yet," Lucian says.

"If we had," Erika says, dry, "he would be mere hours old. I am no elder, but I give you nearly three centuries with my blood. The lady Amelia desires an even trade."

"Of course, of course," Lucian murmurs. "Forgive me, but questions remain. Your lady means to turn someone with the blood of Corvinus, in defiance of your laws?"

"Laws change," Erika says, and then: "The lady Amelia desires an even trade." _She's not going to give you a hybrid without making sure she has one, too_ , Erika means, and Lucian has been fighting this war almost as long as Amelia has. He understands.

"They do indeed," Lucian says. "And what—what will you do with the one so turned?"

That is the first time he's shown any true hesitancy, and Erika's thrown by it—by the question, too. Lucian will have a hybrid of his own. Why should he care what they do with theirs?

"It will not be your child," Selene says quietly.

Lucian looks at her, mouth flattened into a line. His gaze is dark and piercing; Erika wouldn't much like to be pinned by it, but Selene looks as comfortable under it as though—well, as though she were in the midst of a battle, which, in some ways, she is.

"This one will not be your child," Selene says.

"Whenever they come, whoever they are," Lucian says, "they will be my children. The children of my life's work, the children of my will. Viktor slew his own blood to stop it, and now—" He laughs, harshly and unhappily. "Now, the lady Amelia begs me for the chance—"

"The lady Amelia is giving you a chance," Selene says, still low and even. "We have the blood; we have Michael and we have your scientist. We do not have to ask for anything. This is an opportunity. Do not waste it."

Lucian stares at her, and lets out a long slow breath. "You do look like her, you know," he says, and his knife-blade voice has turned almost soft. "And you talk like her—you argue like her. If I may: there is one thing I would ask of you."

"What?" Selene says.

"Do not trust Viktor as she did," Lucian says—he says it like an order, but he mostly sounds tired to Erika. "Do not let him do to you what he did to her. Do not trust him with your life."

"I trust no one with my life but myself," says Selene, and then she takes the filled syringe from Erika's hand and holds both of them out toward Lucian. "An exchange of blood, and cessation of hostilities to commence with dawn—if either side does not hold, there will be recompense. Agreed?"

Lucian searches Selene's face for a long moment, Selene still as stone beneath the scrutiny; and then he closes his eyes and nods. "Agreed," he says, hoarse, and then calls one lycan in from the doorway to draw blood.

  


* * *

  


The guns are just where they left them, still clean and mostly dry—of course Kahn will always have more, but Selene is rather fond of this pair.

She has a syringe of lycan blood in one hand; she picks one gun up off the concrete, and Erika picks up the other. A week ago, Selene would have shaken her head at the very idea that she would give one of her guns into Erika's keeping; but Erika would have been—will be—less safe without it, and Selene finds that thought uncomfortable.

"I wonder why he agreed to it," Erika murmurs, as they work their way back up toward the street. "He knows that we have Michael Corvin—that we can take as much of his blood as we like—"

"Not for long," Selene says. "He said it himself: Michael will turn soon enough. That lycan, Singe—he told us they needed a human descendant of Alexander. In a very short time, Michael will not be human anymore."

"So that's why Lucian bit him," Erika says, and her voice is wholly admiring.

Selene keeps walking. She knows it must be coming—Erika is often inexplicable to Selene, and there was a time when she was foolish, but one thing she has never been is stupid.

"You told Kahn to let him," Erika says more slowly. "To let him change. Knowing it would make him useless. Why—"

"Not here," Selene says, more sharply than she means to. When she darts a glance at Erika, Erika is looking back at her with narrowed eyes; but then the corner of Erika's mouth curls slowly upward.

"Then let's get back to the car," Erika says, a laugh hiding somewhere behind the words. They're standing next to the first of the ladders that lead back up to the street: Erika starts to climb with one hand, the gun in the other, and Selene follows her heels up toward the open air.

 

*

 

Once they're safely closed in and the car has begun to move, Selene reaches into the pack at her waist. The only syringe that is supposed to be there is the one Lucian gave her, full of lycan blood; but if Erika is surprised to see the second one, Selene can't tell it by looking at her face.

"Michael's?" Erika guesses.

Selene rewards her with a brief glance before she undoes the snaps at her sleeve.

"So you will let Michael turn," Erika says slowly, "and no one will have his human blood except you and Lucian. Unless you mean to give that to Amelia; but why would you have brought it with you, if that were so?"

"I do not know what is truth," Selene says, "and what is lies; but Sonja was real, and that means I cannot trust Viktor." It hurts to say it, but the hurt is not physical—that means it cannot impede her unless she allows it, and it cannot be healed with a quick drink. There is nothing left to do but ignore it. "I cannot trust the council, who have either carried on with his lies or do not know the truth. I cannot even trust Amelia, who may be planning some vengeance upon Lucian that I cannot see." Selene smiles, small and bitter, at her own bared forearm, her elbow—so pale, she thinks. It's been so long; she can't remember what the sun felt like, though she knows it once browned her skin every summer. "I can trust no one but myself," she says.

She looks up, and is startled: Erika is leaning forward, elbows on her knees, and she is smiling at Selene. Not bitterly, not smugly or pityingly. Gladly, perhaps.

"That's not true," Erika says, touching the back of Selene's hand with cool fingers. "In the hallway, outside the archives—you trusted me. You've been trusting me since."

"Yes," Selene concedes, and swallows at the way it sounds. She trusts her fellow Deathdealers, she tells herself, trusts them to back her on a mission and listen to her orders—but that's not the same thing, and Erika must know it. Selene forces her tone to turn dry. "Hours and hours."

Erika throws her head back and laughs. "Hours and hours," she agrees, "and now you're doing it again." She lifts her hand away from Selene's to motion toward the syringes. "Why tell me this? Why do this in front of me? Unless you're planning to kill me."

"No," Selene admits.

Erika grins at the word like that's a prize all on its own, and slides Michael's blood out of Selene's other hand. "Let me," she murmurs; and blood is not a light matter, but Selene doesn't close her hand around the syringe, doesn't pull her arm away.

Erika finds the vein in Selene's arm as quickly as she found her own, and slides the needle in neatly. There is no rush of memories with the motion of the plunger, it is nothing like a bite; but Selene suspects that flickers of Michael will rise to the surface now and again. She has bitten so many—it won't be difficult to handle.

The lycan blood is next, and this Erika handles like it is a vial full of arsenic, full of sunlight. "You're certain," she says, her gaze on Selene's face.

"Less often than you might think," Selene says quietly, and puts her fingers over Erika's to guide the second plunger down.

  


* * *

  


Michael's change went well, Kahn thinks, considering there was nothing for him to kill and he was chained to a bed. Perhaps his Corvinus blood—surely these things are easier for a child of Alexander than they would be for anyone else.

Kahn gave him blood, just as Selene asked: threw a bag of it to him and let him tear it apart. It was incredibly undignified; but when Michael wakes afterward and sees the mess, he asks, and the relief in his eyes when Kahn tells him he did not kill makes Kahn think he's not the sort to care.

There are no marks on his wrists when Kahn unlocks the cuffs.

"Um, not that I'm going to miss the bed," Michael says, "but are you sure you should be letting me—"

"The first time is a strain," Kahn says, tugging the second cuff open. "You won't change again for some time, and when you do, you'll be yourself." It isn't necessarily true; control is harder for some than others. But Kahn suspects Michael will find it easier than most.

"But there's no—no undoing it."

"No," Kahn says.

Michael covers his face with his hands, leaves it there. Kahn unlocks his ankles and then pauses, crouched by the bed, until Michael sucks in a breath and looks up.

"It's not a curse," he says.

"No," Kahn says. "You will want bloody meat, but there are other ways to get it; you do not need to kill. You are stronger, faster, your senses keener. You will live forever—"

"Unless I'm murdered by a vampire," Michael says, but his voice is only a little unsteady.

"The odds of that may be about to drop," Kahn says. "In many ways, it is just like a human's life: it will be whatever you make it."

Kahn turns toward the table, and picks up the things he has prepared: money, and a gun. Not his best piece, not when he has no idea how well Michael can shoot, but a good one.

"For me?" Michael says, when Kahn holds them out. "You shouldn't have."

"Don't waste them," Kahn says, dry. "If another lycan challenges you, do not be the first to look down and do not lose the fight. They don't often go to the death these days, I hear."

"Thanks," Michael says wryly, and takes both.

There is a tunnel out beneath the mansion—there are cameras, but the footage is not often reviewed, and Michael will be long gone before that moment comes. "It would be unwise to return here," Kahn says, opening the door to lead Michael out.

"Isn't there something I can do for you?" Michael says, stuffing the wad of money in his pocket and the gun into the waist of his jeans. "I know you didn't have to do all this—"

"I did not do it alone," Kahn says. "Much effort went toward saving your life, Michael Corvin." Not even in the most obvious sense, Kahn thinks; it would have been so easy for Michael to spend all his days chained to that bed, blood drawn every time the council needed a new soldier. "Sell it dearly."

"Don't die easy," Michael translates, and stands. "You got it."

  


* * *

  


Selene doesn't foam or seize, when the lycan blood is injected. She doesn't die, either.

The change isn't quite enough to tear her Deathdealer's leather, which Erika secretly thinks is a shame; her skin does strain underneath it, her fingers cracking and splitting to give her claws like a lycan's, and the dimensions of her ribs, her shoulders, are somehow altered. And, most obvious of all, a blue so dark it is almost black is seeping across her skin like ink through water.

Selene is tensing and twisting in slow waves—too slow to call it thrashing, but it is thrashing's better-controlled cousin. The bones of her face snap outward, the bridge of her nose forced into a far more convex line, but it is nothing like the sweeping changes that crunch lycan features into such a doglike shape.

When it ends, Selene lies still against the seat for a long moment; and then she turns her head and opens her eyes, and Erika sees with a shiver that they are black as night from edge to edge.

Selene must notice the shiver. She bares her teeth—they are all sharp as fangs.

Erika laughs, breathless with delight.

"Aren't you frightened?" Selene grits out from between her new teeth, low and growling.

"What? Of you?" Erika laughs again. "Never," she says. "Look at you. Trained as a Deathdealer, lycan-strong, vampire-fast—there's nothing in the world like you. You could probably kill the whole council in five minutes."

It's hard to tell where Selene's looking with those ink-black eyes, but Erika thinks it's at her. "Have you no respect?" Selene snarls out.

"Ten, then," Erika says, and then makes a show of looking Selene over, head to toe. "Or maybe seven and a half."

Selene makes a sharp noise in her throat.

"I could scream and throw myself out of the car," Erika says, "if that's what you'd prefer. But if you won't be slaughtering the council, someone's going to have to talk to them. Unless you'd rather do that yourself?"

Selene's rumbling growl says the answer to that question is no.

"That's what I thought," Erika says. "You could have killed me outside the archives just as easily as you can now; but you trusted me instead. A thousand years of you to each of them, and Viktor lied to you, Kraven betrayed you—I've only had hours, but I think I've done better. Wouldn't you agree?"

She leans across the seat and curls her hand around Selene's black claws; the motion of Selene's eyelids says she glances down, and then back up, back at Erika's face.

Selene closes her eyes and shudders, just a little, and against Erika's palm the claws melt away, that blue-black color receding over Selene's hand. When she looks at Erika again, her eyes are her own—not even vampire-blue, just Selene's usual dark shade. "But will you always," Selene says, not bothering to make it a question.

Erika smiles. "Give me a thousand years," she says, "and we'll find out."


End file.
